Worth It All
by Jordanna Morgan
Summary: After the Kabane are gone, Ikoma enjoys a hard-won peace at last.


**Title:** Worth It All  
**Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
**Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
**Rating/Warnings:** G.  
**Characters:** Ikoma, several OC children, and a couple of other friends.  
**Setting:** Many years in the future.  
**Summary:** After the Kabane are gone, Ikoma enjoys a hard-won peace at last.  
**Disclaimer:** They belong to Kabaneri Committee and other relevant parties. I'm just playing with them.  
**Notes:** Written for the prompts of "Fast-Forward" at Fan Flashworks, and "Retirement" at Genprompt Bingo. Just a bit of happy-ending futurefic… and yes, Takumi is alive _because I said so_. (Pending a fix-it fic I intend to write for that little issue later on, anyway.) Ikoma is still a Kabaneri here, but I avoid mentioning Mumei to allow the possibility that he _was_ able to make her human again.

* * *

The sun was warm.

Ikoma opened his eyes with a lazy stretch, blinking at myriad sparkles of sunlight on water between golden-green stalks. As he sat up on the bamboo mat where he had dozed, he couldn't resist a thoughtful smile. For as long as he lived, he would never tire of this view: the living evidence of what he and his friends had fought so hard to achieve years ago.

Because of them, the Kabane had been exterminated from Hinomoto, and the land beyond the once-fortified stations was free and open once more.

This rice paddy on the outskirts of New Aragane was the very first to be cultivated in the post-Kabane era. Of course, it was only natural that the people of the _Kotetsujo_ were the first to brave a world reborn. It had taken more time for most station-dwellers to believe the Kabane were truly gone; but Ikoma and his friends knew the victory they had won. It was they who set the example, rebuilding Aragane without its old defensive walls. As the months passed, they were not attacked by a single surviving monster, and their flourishing open-land agriculture made them wealthy in trade with those still hiding. Gradually, other stations found the courage to tear down their walls as well.

Even now, the process of building new settlements and the infrastructure to link them was ongoing. It was no easy task to reclaim a countryside that had lain abandoned for decades, leaving the wilderness to grow unchecked over the decaying remains of pre-Kabane society. With the help of his fellow _Kotetsujo_ steamsmiths, Ikoma had applied his skills to that problem as well: he'd spent the years since their victory developing new technologies for construction, communication, and travel. The chance to finally design tools that would be used to _create_ instead of destroy was all he could have wished for.

But what he loved most about this era of peace was what he and his friends had created in more organic ways. The simple things, like this rice paddy… and the further growth of the family they had become.

Summer heat lay thick and heavy upon the field, but the thatch-roofed watchman's hut stood on stilts that exposed it to a cooling breeze, and an overhang of corrugated metal partially shaded the jutting porch. The only sounds to be heard were gnashing cicadas and the creak of the waterwheel Ikoma had built to irrigate the paddy. Here and there, dragonflies skimmed over the ripening heads of grain; an egret fished for tadpoles in the shallow water, and a crow sat brazenly on the shoulder of a scarecrow the children had erected.

And speaking of which…

Ikoma tilted his head, picking up the first notes of young voices in the distance. The laughter and chatter slowly increased in volume, at last driving off the crow with an indignant _caw_, and then the wood platform of the hut vibrated with energetic footsteps hitting the ladder.

"_Uncle Ikoma_!"

Several children crowded around him, all talking at once.

"Look what Rika found in the mud!"

"What is it?"

"It's so weird!"

"I wish _I'd_ seen it first!"

Amidst the general hubbub, a tall slim girl with raven hair and blushing cheeks was pushed to the fore. The daughter of Ayame and Kurusu, Rika was the eldest and effectively the leader of the close-knit little gang currently besieging Ikoma. She was going on fourteen now; nearly old enough to volunteer as a blood donor for the Kabaneri, and all but counting the days until she could claim the privilege of giving her beloved "uncle" that support.

It never ceased to amaze Ikoma that the children were so unafraid of him—even knowing that his own blood still harbored a final vestige of the monsters their elders' stories gave them nightmares about.

With a smile at his young friends, he drew his knees up and rested his elbows on them, holding out his hand. "What have you got? Let's see."

Shyly Rika produced a dappled black-and-silver mass. Still wet from a rinsing after it was dug out of the paddy's mud, it filled Ikoma's palm with a heavy weight. He blinked at it in surprised interest, taking in its irregular shape and the porous latticing of its surface. Opposite sides of the hollow shell sported a prominent ragged hole, as if something had penetrated clear through it.

"It was out on the edge of the paddy, near the woods," Daichi offered helpfully, jostling a few of the younger children who were crowding close to gawk at the object. "Do you know what it is?"

"I ought to." Ikoma smiled ruefully. "It's an old Kabane heart cage."

Small gasps and wondering murmurs rippled through the crowd of young onlookers; but not one of them shrank away.

"You probably didn't recognize it because it's so tarnished from years of exposure," Ikoma went on, rubbing his thumb against the oily blackness that overlay the silver shine. As he expected, it began to slough away with the friction. "But if you clean it up, it'll look just like the ones in the museum."

A modest building near the center of town, the museum housed a collection of artifacts from the Kabane years: jet bullets and coated katanas, heart cages and fanged jawbones, even a section of armor plating from the _Kotetsujo_'s hull that was dented by a powerful Kabane fist. Miss Ayame had established this grim exhibit to teach future generations what their elders once fought—and to ensure that those who lived through those days never forgot the battle that united them. Of all the crucial decisions the great lady of Aragane had ever made, that may have been the one Ikoma most respected her for.

"Do the holes in it mean the Kabane got shot?" asked little Hiromi, hooking a finger into her mouth.

"I doubt it. The bushi didn't have jet bullets when Old Aragane fell, and regular ones hardly ever penetrated. Besides, the shape of these holes is wrong. This looks more like somebody punched through it with a blade. Probably not a katana, either; they broke too easily before we started coating them with heart-cage metal. I'd guess it was something heavier, like an iron pickaxe or farming tool."

Ikoma carefully did _not_ mention that on that terrible night, the person who managed to puncture this particular Kabane heart still could not have escaped to the _Kotetsujo_. The train depot was too far from that spot for anyone to have covered the distance without falling prey to the roaming horde. What the Kabaneri held in his hand was the sobering evidence of a human being's last futile struggle to survive.

_And while they died, I was able to live… but not as a human anymore._

_It's alright, though. Because if I hadn't become what I am, and gained the strength to fight for my friends… maybe none of these kids would be here today._

"…So what do you plan to do with it?" he changed the subject, for his own benefit if for no one else's, as he gently passed the heart cage back to Rika. "That organic metal is still valuable, and it's getting harder to find. You could sell it for good money."

The girl blinked at him, as if surprised by the idea that such an object could be hers to keep simply because she found it. Then she ducked her head, clenching the morbid artifact tightly between the fingers of both hands.

"But it's… it's really like the one you still have inside _you_, too?"

The Kabaneri suppressed a wince, but the faint, flustered pinkening of his face betrayed him. "Yeah."

Immediately Rika flamed to a blush that far surpassed his, shuffling from one foot to the other. "Then, if it's okay… I'd like to keep it.—To remind me of how you were able to fight for my parents and save them!" she fumbled, glaring hotly around her as a few of the older children snickered.

"_Aaanyway_," Daichi mercifully interrupted, with a slight roll of his eyes. "Mom sent us to find you. Some of the other parents are getting together at our house for dinner, so she wanted you to come too."

Smiling warmly, Ikoma rose from the mat. "In that case, I _definitely_ know better than to keep Kajika waiting."

After a stretch to limber muscles still languid from his nap, he swung himself over the porch railing and dropped straight to the ground, some fifteen feet below. Sensible enough _not_ to repeat this act of their inhumanly-agile surrogate uncle, the children settled for charging eagerly down the ladder. A moment later, the entire procession was threading its way along the narrow raised paths through the paddy. No less than three of the youngest children piled onto Ikoma's back and shoulders, taking advantage of his great strength to catch a piggyback ride. Others paused on the way to catch crawfish in the mud, or to pluck wild greens from alongside the path, as a contribution to the evening's feast—which further lengthened the ambling walk home, but Ikoma didn't mind at all.

_Hatsune and I used to be just like this, so many years ago._

_On that night when I lost her…_

_I never could have dreamed that someday I'd have a family again, and be as happy as I am now._

The rowdy group's destination was a sprawling house on the outskirts of town. When they finally arrived, Kajika was tending some herbs and flowers she grew near the doorstep. She beamed as her children and students immediately clamored around, nattering to the much-loved schoolteacher about their adventures in finding Uncle Ikoma, the crawfish… and the heart cage.

At that part of the story, Kajika raised her eyes to Ikoma with a warm but faintly sympathetic smile. He returned a grin and a good-natured shrug, wordlessly assuring her that he was untroubled by the reminder of things both past and regrettably present.

An approaching voice drifted through the open doorway of the house. "Hey Kajika, have you seen where I left my tool belt?"

"Uh, my guess would be it's wherever you left your _brain_?" Ikoma offered, his grin taking on a mischievous twist.

There was an amused snort, and Takumi's round face poked out into the sun, his own smile bearing a maniacal edge. "So they finally fished you out of the rice paddy…"

The banter was interrupted by Daichi, who hurtled forward to attach himself to Takumi's arm. "Dad! You should see what Rika found. Uncle Ikoma says it's a real Kabane heart cage, just like the ones in the museum!"

Although Takumi raised his eyebrows, he did not glance at Ikoma, instead remaining focused on his eldest son. "Huh, really? That's something. I would've thought we'd dug out whatever was left of 'em before the paddy got planted. …Well, if you want one too, maybe someday Uncle Ikoma and I can take you to one of the places along the tracks where we fought Kabane. I'll bet there's still some cages lying around out there."

"Excuse me? What do you mean by _we_?" Ikoma retorted, although he was unable to stifle a smirk at the way Daichi's eyes lit up. Embellished or not, the boy couldn't get enough of his father's tales. Takumi had already promised that when he was old enough, they would visit the ruins of Kongokaku, and Daichi could see firsthand the one fallen station that remained untouched. People had slowly overcome the haunting memory of ordinary Kabane, but survivors' reports of the monstrous _thing_ that struck the former capital had taken on a superstitious life of their own, until few ever dared to go near that crumbling island.

It was not a trip Ikoma relished the idea of himself. Kongokaku would always be a reminder to him of _human_ evil, of a twisted deliberate malice that was far more terrible than the mere mindless hunger of Kabane… but perhaps that was exactly why it would not be a bad thing to go there, to make peace with the things that happened in that place. With the memories of the time when Takumi almost died—and when Ikoma thought his best friend _had_ died.

Throughout the subsequent battle, his certainty of that loss fueled his iron heart with the fire of vengeance. It was only after the escape, when he woke up alive and safe on the _Kotetsujo_, that he learned Takumi had somehow clung to life and was slowly recovering.

Because of Ikoma, Takumi insisted. Because he knew that if he died, that Kabane-bitten idiot would blame himself, and he couldn't have that; so he simply had to live.

It was after that, Ikoma thought, that Takumi and Kajika had grown close. Takumi's brush with death made him realize one sweet and gentle girl close at hand was better than any three _dream wives_ could ever be, and his brave actions similarly opened Kajika's eyes to another side of her friend. Ikoma was sure their blossoming attraction had surprised _everyone_, not least of all the couple themselves—but he was glad it had happened. Together for years now, raising children and doing work they were passionate about, the two people he loved most in the world were as happy and at peace as he was.

If the events at Kongokaku played any part in bringing that about…

Then maybe it was alright after all.

"So how about looking at something with me before dinner?" Takumi inquired, sidling closer to give Ikoma a fond shoulder-bump. "I've been trying to tweak that tractor engine design we've been working on, but the cylinders—"

"Oh no you don't!" Kajika intervened shrilly. Hands on hips, with the children gathered around her like stern little reinforcements, she glowered at the men. "If you two start talking about machines, you'll be at it all night. I'm going to keep you busy chopping the vegetables for dinner instead."

"Even me?" Ikoma deflated, faced with the prospect of helping to prepare a meal he couldn't take part in eating.

"Well, you do want to earn _your_ dinner, don't you?"

"…Oh. Of course." Suddenly feeling foolish, Ikoma gave her a bow. "_Thank you_, Kajika."

With a hapless smile, Takumi raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, we get it. We'll make sure we're not lost in our own little world when Lady Ayame and Kurusu get here."

"That reminds me. Yukina and Sukari are coming too," Kajika added. "So if you _have_ to talk shop, at least wait until later and let them in on it."

"Them too? …I think we're gonna need more sake."

Wrinkling her nose at her husband, Kajika made a gesture of shooing him toward the doorway, and promptly turned back to picking herbs. Takumi chuckled, shook his head, and nudged Ikoma in the direction of the house.

The Kabaneri smiled and followed his friend, looking forward to an evening spent among family.

* * *

_2019 Jordanna Morgan_


End file.
